Thanksgiving Weekend

This year, due to Ryan's work schedule, we stayed in California over the Thanksgiving weekend.  We actually had a lot of fun, though!  We got together with two other orphaned families from church and did Thanksgiving dinner together.  I made my mom's stuffing recipe, which everybody loved, plus mashed potatoes and set salad.  Other dishes there included coconut-topped sweet potato casserole, bacon-wrapped green beans, pie, turkey, salad, rolls, and sparkling cider.  It was so much easier than trying to do it all myself!  Plus, the kids had friends to play with.
  

I tried to get a picture of the grown-ups table, but they never sat down all at once!

Listening to "Run Turkey Run" - Kind of a dark story if you think about it . . 

   

We did do a thankful tree this year, but it was kind of puny.  Not because we weren't thankful, but because Ryan and Connor got attacked by yellowjackets while finding this stick.  They didn't feel like going out to look for a bigger one.  (Connor was stung twice, Ryan once.)

   

   
The day after that, we had a field trip to the California Science Center with some friends from Connor and Elise's school. We saw an IMAX movie about the Hubble telescope, then saw the Endeavor Space Shuttle exhibit.  It was amazing to see something that had been in space so many times.  I was really surprised by how many space shuttle missions there had been - 135 in all!  Some years in the mid-80's had missions every other month or so.  Also, a large number of the early ones were for the Department of Defense, and were classified.  Makes sense, I guess.
  

They had posters for every shuttle mission wrapping around the hangar.

Evan hadn't napped, and behaved accordingly . . 

       
Saturday we joined friends at Joshua Tree National Park for a day trip (they camped, we did not.)  At the start of one of our little hikes, I decided to stay behind to feed Corinne.  By the time she was ready to go, our group was long gone, so I decided to do the hike myself (I eventually found everyone.)  It was so, so nice to just be alone for awhile, walking in such a pretty area.
   

Just Me and Binny (and all those other hikers.)